Brahms Blog: Performance History

And join us next season as we revisit the Brahms Violin Concerto and Symphonies No. 2 & 4 at the Royal Festival Hall, and continue to bring his outstanding compositions to a new generation of classical concert-goers

Gilels, 1980

A decade earlier in 1974, the then 94 year old conductor Leopold Stokowski conducted Brahms Symphony No. 4 with us at the Royal Albert Hall, in what would be his final UK concert, before recording the work for RCA Records.

Lucerne Festival, 1954

In 1954 we performed Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 with Rafel Kubelik at the Lucerne Festival, alongside the composer’s Violin Concerto.

Brahms is back!

We restart our Andris Nelsons Brahms Cycle on 23 January with a performance of the Piano Concerto No. 2 and Symphony No. 4. Find out more about the programme and the other concert’s in the series here

Sanderling, 1994

14 years earlier the Piano Concerto No. 1 opened a Kurt Sanderling Brahms Series, a cycle that saw a host of great names perform alongside the legendary Maestro

Dudamel, 2008

November saw Gustavo Dudamel return to perform with us at the Royal Festival Hall!When he made his full RFH/Philharmonia debut back in 2008, he opened with a performance of Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1, played by Piotr Anderszewski.

Sao Paulo, 1998

Rio International Music Festival, 1963

The England Football Team may be on its way to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup, but before England’s only World Cup success it was we who were boarding a flight to Rio and the 1963 Rio International Music Festival, where we performed Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 and Symphony No. 2 with Sir John Barbirolli and Claudio Arrau.

Toscanini, 1952

Our Brahms series now takes a brief hiatus, returning in January with the Piano Concerto No. 2, Symphony No. 4 and (all-being well) Andris Nelsons! For more information on the concerts visit the series webpage here…

Your Comments

Here are just a few of your Twitter comments on the opening concert of our RFH Brahms Cycle

Klemperer, 1956

…a symphony we famously recorded with Otto Klemperer a decade earlier (1956)

Munch, 1965

In 1965, Charles Munch conducted us for Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 alongside works by Handel, Elgar and Ravel, touring the programme to Vienna, Milan and London

Lill, 1963

50 years ago, in the presence of Her Royal Highness Princess Alice Countess of Athlone, we performed the First Piano Concerto with John Lill at the RFH, as part of a Gala Concert for the Victoria League For Commonwealth Friendship

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'When it comes to the D minor piano concerto, I have always felt, since the first time I heard it, that I couldn’t live without that piece' - Hélène Grimaud

Oistrakh/Fournier/Galliera, 1956

…a recording that, when it hit the shelves, looked like this…

Brahms's Double Concerto

On Sunday we’ll be joined by Tanja and Christian Tetzlaff for a performance of Brahms’s Double Concerto. After first performing the work with Sir Malcom Sargent in 1951, and then again with Rudolf Schwarz in 1952, we recorded the concerto with soloists David Oistrakh and Pierre Fournier in 1956, conducted by Alceo Galliera - here’s a great pic from that very recording session!

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'The idea comes to me from outside of me - and is like a gift. I then take the idea and make it my own - that is where the skill lies' - Johannes Brahms

Orchestra Members on Brahms's Symphonies

Prepare for the start of our RFH Brahms Cycle with this video from 2008, featuring Philharmonia Orchestra members discussing Brahms’s Symphonies

Pope, 1959

In December 1959 we performed Symphony No. 1 under the leadership of Stanley Pope at the Royal Festival Hall. Here's what a shilling could of got you back then on the Southbank...

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Cantelli, 1953

After first performing the work with Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1951, we toured the 1st Symphony throughout 1952 with Stanley Pope, Herbert von Karajan and Arturo Toscanini, whose performance was relayed live on the BBC! Listen to that recording here.

Guide to Brahms

Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer and pianist.

Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene. In his lifetime, Brahms's popularity and influence were considerable; following a comment by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow, he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs".

Brahms composed for piano, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, and for voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works; he worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim. Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.

Brahms is often considered both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Baroque and Classical masters. He was a master of counterpoint, the complex and highly disciplined art for which Johann Sebastian Bach is famous, and of development, a compositional ethos pioneered by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and other composers. Brahms aimed to honour the "purity" of these venerable "German" structures and advance them into a Romantic idiom, in the process creating bold new approaches to harmony and melody. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers.

Welcome to our Brahms Cycle blog!

Throughout the series we’ll be posting materials that will draw light on the man and his music, as well as highlighting the Philharmonia’s long-standing association with the works of Brahms. Make sure you visit us regularly as we delve into our archives and provide the perfect accompaniment to this exciting series.